


The Curtain Rises

by celluloidbroomcloset



Category: The Avengers (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 23:39:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4368752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloidbroomcloset/pseuds/celluloidbroomcloset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steed and Mrs. Peel try to go to the theater.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Curtain Rises

“Emma? Emma? Emma!” 

Emma poked her head out from the kitchen. “What?!” 

Steed turned to face her, fingering the offending tie. “I can’t get it right.”

She made a face like a mother dealing with a recalcitrant youngster, but set down the wine bottle she’d been fighting and came into the room. He hadn’t quite had a good look at her yet that evening, so enjoyed the sight as she swayed towards him in an emerald-green dress that hugged her figure in the most distracting manner. Her auburn hair was smoothed and brushed and encircled her lovely face as a fine frame complements the masterpiece which it adorns. She had the smallest hint of the vixen or the flirt about her, though, and that, in contrast to her otherwise cool, elegant demeanor, gave her a deeply attractive quality. Any other man would have failed to appreciate this contrast, and treated her either as an easy conquest (which would be quickly disproven in the first instant) or as an unattainable prize. But Steed, who knew her so well, knew that she was no prize to be won, and appeared in her true colors to no other man but him. 

“You really should learn to tie one of these. At your age, too.” Emma took hold of the bow-tie’s strands and began to expertly knot them. 

“My age has nothing to do with it, m’dear.”

Actually, he knew how to tie one for himself, and had known since he was twelve years old. He just liked having her hands on him, the delicate brush of her fingertips as she manipulated the tie at his throat, the proximity of her body, the little quirk of her lip and pull of her brow in concentration. It was both an intimate and a detached act, her doing his tie, and he enjoyed it the way one enjoys breathing in the aromatic fumes of an excellent port, just before tasting it. He suspected that she knew perfectly well that he didn’t really need help, but enjoyed doing the little things as much as he did.

“I expect better education from Eton,” she said, straightening the tie.

“I was better on the cricket pitch than in the ballroom,” he replied, a frank and bold-faced lie. She smirked, running her hand down his snowy shirt front before she reached up again to fix his collar over his tie.

“You’re a bad fibber Steed.”

“Mrs. Peel! I never fib. Not where it counts.” 

“No, I was aware of that much.” 

She was standing so close to him that he could smell her vanilla shampoo and floral perfume – a unique combination that usually drove him to distraction. But they had tickets for the theatre and the curtain would go up in an hour. Just enough time to have an aperitif in the foyer before making their way to their seats. Then a lovely two hours of song, dance, a touch of comedy… 

“Steed,” Emma said, her fingers still resting on the knot of his tie. “Did I ever tell you that you look wonderful in a dinner suit.” 

He turned his head down. Her cat’s eyes rested not on his face but on his Adam’s Apple; he knew that look. Beyond her face he could see easily to her cleavage and he noted what he had already suspected: that the dress did not permit her to wear a bra. He cleared his throat. 

“Thank you, m’dear.”

“Very handsome. Very debonair.” She kissed his neck. “Very sexy.” 

“It’s, uh…you know, it is getting late.” It was also getting rather warm.

“Is it?” Another kiss, this closer to his pulse, the sensation of her lips on sensitive skin recalling other, finer touches. “I hadn’t noticed.”

She nipped at him, just enough to make him feel it, and he took a sharp breath as other parts of him began to respond entirely of their own accord.

“I thought you hate to miss the curtain.” 

“We have plenty of time,” she said. Her hand snaked around to hold his head and he looked down at her, just enough to see the smouldering witchcraft of her eyes. 

“Gilbert and Sullivan wait for no man.”

She gave his mouth a chaste, teasing kiss. “Neither do I.”

That did it. He seized her body and her mouth at the same time, counteracting her sensual teasing with his own slightly more aggressive reply. She made a noise in her throat that might have been surprise or might have been arousal. Whatever it was, she responded to him with the same aggression, taking gulps of his mouth, drawing him into her. Her right hand slid down his chest and for a moment he thought she was pushing him away – but no, she was merely seeking for that which she must, by now, have surely felt. Her palm pressed against him through far far too many layers of constricting cloth and she chuckled. 

“As quick as a teenager,” she said, the tease in her voice meant to incite him. Steed grinned, cupping her backside so that she was pressed more firmly against him.

“But slow where it counts,” he growled into her ear before he bit her, lightly. He felt her tighten, her lithe body coiling, her breath beginning to speed up. He didn’t need to touch her to know that she was responding to him with the same alacrity, even violence, that he did to her. It was simply less immediately obvious in her case. 

He knew where they were going and it was not to the theatre. It was not even up the winding stairs to his bedroom, though he fully intended to make use of his big, comfortable bed that night. She began to back up and he followed her, maintaining contact the whole while, until she touched the edge of his oak desk. No Ministry business cluttered it, nothing to impede them save for a small lamp that he mentally noted not to break if he could avoid it. Then again, he could have smashed the desk to bits at that moment and not cared a whit for it.

She settled onto the desk easily, with an odd sort of care, pulling him with her. She leaned back as he drew her against his aching groin, her skirts pulling back and revealing yet another intoxicating secret: that beneath stockings, garters, and belt, she wore nothing else.

“Vixen,” he growled, slipping his fingers against her, feeling for her readiness. “You were planning this.”

“You like me when I’m just a touch sluttish, Steed.” 

“I like you when you’re anything you want to be, Mrs. Peel.”

Her smile told him all. He unbuckled his trousers and pushed them and his briefs down his thighs. Emma drew up her legs and leaned back on the desk, one hand at her breast, her eyes dark, bewitching pools. He ran his hand down the black stockings to the exposed flesh of her upper thighs, fondling her generously before clasping her, drawing her against him, and pushing himself within.

Her damp warmth flooded him, pulled him in, just tight enough around his shaft to make him clamp his eyes shut, to enjoy the sensation of her and equally to control himself. She tried to move but he held her in his grip. She was not going to take him, he was going to take her – that’s what she wanted, what she had asked for, and he would give it to her. He held her steady, though he could hear her staccato breaths, her little moans of anticipation. He opened his eyes and looked down at her, at her heaving body, her legs drawn up around his waist, her eyes desperate, one hand rubbing at her breast through her clothes. He began to move, looking at her, feeling her, hearing her. In this position, on the slippery surface of the desk, he was in control.

“Harder,” she demanded and he acquiesced, driving into her faster, harder, gripping her buttocks hard so that she wouldn’t slide across the desk. She was moaning now, taking gulps of air and letting it out in a wild, animal chorus that he knew he answered with his own deeper, equally wild grunts. Her legs locked around him, her hands gripped the desk until the knuckles turned white. Her body rose and fell in time to his. She was close, he could feel it in the way her legs gripped him, see it in her bright face, hear it in her repetition of his name. Close, and thank God too, because he had no further self-control. He felt her come, her deepest muscles grasping him, making him a part of her for that one, glorious moment in time, and he let go as well, shouting out his own orgasm in a low moan that included her name. 

Steed braced his fists on the desk to keep from collapsing to the side. Then, gradually, he became aware of the slightly tawdry aspects of this sudden interaction: him with his trousers down around his ankles, her with her legs still suspended in the air, her lovely dress crumpled around her waist. Which one of them began laughing first was immaterial. They both did, at first chuckling, then shaking, humorous laughter. Steed stepped backwards, drawing up his trousers and briefs, then helped her sit up, still laughing. She sat on the edge of his desk, laughing, and she was so beautiful, and so ridiculous, that he just had to kiss her smiling face, had to wrap his arms around her, this woman who would seduce him in his own living room, who would wear stockings and garters and make love with him on his antique desk when they should be driving to the theatre, who would laugh with him at the sheer silliness of it all. She hugged him back until their giggles subsided and they were able to look each other in the eyes without a fresh burst of laughter. Then Steed checked his watch.

“If we hurry, we’ll be there in time for the overture,” he said. 

“Mm.” Emma nodded. 

“Or…”

“Or?”

“Well, I’ve seen it, you know.” 

“Oh. Yes, so have I.”

“It’s good.”

“Mmhm.”

“Could be better.”

“Not their best, is it?”

“No.”

“I do have a bottle of champagne in the refrigerator.”

“And some of that pate?”

“A soupcon of caviar.”

She climbed off the desk, smoothing her dress down, and took his hand.

“I do enjoy going to the theatre with you, Steed,” she said as she led him towards the winding staircase. 

“Oh, me too, Mrs. Peel. Me too.”


End file.
